: I have the deck on my CH17 and am ready to cut hatch openings. I am thinking
: of installing flush hatches. I remember seeing a posting or website with a
: very good decription of how to do it on a S&G with plywood spacers and
: rim, but now I can't find it. Can somebody point me in the right
: direction? (I have tried looking through the archives, but most of the
: messages seem to be about strip built kayaks rather than S&G.)

Recently most posts have been about flush hatches on strippers. It seems to me that there were a couple people 2 years ago who did flush hatches on S&G boats. Have you looked at the OLD archives?

: Also, for flush hatches, do you cut the openings larger since you will have
: to have a rim inside the opening making it smaller instead of having the
: overlap of a larger hatch?

Yes. Instead of making the opening smaller than the hatch size, you make the opening as large as the hatch. By the way, I think the front hatch on the CH17 is way too small-it should be much longer and a bit wider. The back hatch could stand to be a bit longer as well. You're trying to stuff long, narrow bags into a long, narrow compartment through a short hole--it's hard to get some drybags to make the "corner".

I found this link in the old archive: Nick used the plywood lip method to put flush hatches in his S&G Guillemot.

Shawn